Tag Archives: daleks

This edit mergers the first episode of Doctor Who’s tenth series with three other episodes from that particular series, removing all the pretentious teasing of what’s inside The Vault that goes ultimately nowhere and has an obvious reveal handed to us within minutes of the episode

Extremis is the first part of the Monk trilogy, which really isn’t that much to write home about, other than virtually any scene that includes Michelle Gomez. It is that scenery chewing that compels me also to use the last few precious minutes of “The Lie Of the Land”, the conclusion to the trilogy, as a coda to this episode, replacing the original ending with The Doctor trying to wipe Bill’s mind of her adventure.

I’ve also decided to insert Bill and her friends finding a new house to live in from the episode “Knock, Knock”. This particular plot point doesn’t actually go anywhere in this edit, it’s just a nice little set up that gives us more of a slice of life with Bill, plus I like the atmosphere of Bill with mates more than putting up with her step-mum.

CHANGES

– Begin with original pre-credits scene from “The Pilot”
– After titles, we play some footage from “Extremis”
– “Knock Knock” footage takes over after Missy tells The Doctor to let her live
– Just as Bill is hesitant to sign the contract to move into the house, we cut to The Doctor’s “Time” lecture. Producer and director credit scenes cut
– We cut to “Extremis” footage after The Doctor says “It means life”
– We cut back to “The Pilot” after Nardole tells The Doctor he can kick his arse
– We cut back to “Extremis” after the Puddle establishes the link with the pilot
– White flash cross fade from “Extremis” to Christmas at the University in “The Pilot”
– Cut Heather meeting Bill outside the university and repeating what she says
– Cut the TARDIS landing in Australia
– Last of the “Extremis” footage plays after Bill notices her tears
– “Lie of the Land” ending used as final scene

Debuts for Doctors are, like regeneration, a bit dodgy, you never know what you’re going to end up with, but it’d better be good.

Deep Breath is good for the most part, and this by no means an attempt to reinvent the wheel, rather instead we take the wheel and add it to an altogether different motor.

Fanediting is very much like the broom analogy in the story, which, lucky for you I’ve kept in. After a while, is it the same film or show? Of course it is’nt, and that’s the point.

But with the way story arcs in television and film series, one can glue things together a tiny bit more confidant that it can mesh well, and create the illusion that some things stay very much the same.

So we come to this, a chance to launch Peter Capaldi’s Doctor a bit differently. An hour-long opening with Twelve mulling over whether or not he’s a good man, complete with a scene that really enforces whether or not he is as he dispatches Half-Face Man at the start of the story.

I figure if you’re going to relaunch Doctor Who to the casual crowd, you really should try things the way Russel T. Davies managed…we’ve seen the regeneration, we’ve seen previous Doctors work out their mission statement in their openers…let’s see Capaldi struggle with his mission statement right off the bat and not have him try to work out if he’s got Clara’s name right or if he can really complain about things now that he’s scottish. Let’s be like our rebel time lord and be rebellious…let us see him kick up a fuss, be proactive, and kick arse as soon as he see him.

Let’s stick him in the midst of a proper adventure. A typical Saturday Night out for him and his mates. Most of the story you’ve seen unfold in the original cut of Deep Breath is elaborated on within the restaurant confrontation with Half-Face Man, it’s almost as if Deep Breath could have just been a “day in the life” minisode before the main event.

And, appropriately enough, the privilege of facing off against Capaldi should lie with The Daleks.

Outside of The Power of the Daleks, no other Doctor’s debut story has opened with them facing him. Odd given their long history, but they’re mostly reserved for Doctor’s finales in the new stuff (except for Tennant), so I figured “what the heck?”

Changes in full
-Kicking things off in the edit right off the bat is the final third of Deep Breath, and the Doctor’s companions knee-deep in danger. It’s a typical Saturday night with the new Doctor introducing himself by pouring a glass and then debating life and death with The Half-Man. What serves as a decisive stand off becomes an enigmatic introduction to our favorite time lord.

-The titles kick in after Clara finds the TARDIS is missing from the courtyard

-First use of Into the Dalek footage kicks off after the titles, with the new Doctor answering the distress call and reaching the asteroid base where he learns of the Dalek being held prisoner. We cut before we see what he sees

-Resume Deep Breath footage here with Vastra assuring Clara The Doctor will return for her. We end the footage once they arrive in Glasgow, but cut before they talk about buying chips and coffee.

–Cut to Danny Pink arriving for class. His drill sergeant routine with the boys has been cut

-Cut The Doctor and Clara talking about coffee and glasgow.

At the 26: 29 mark of the edit , you hear a door clicking just before Clara closes the door in the shot, this is not a miscue with the audio, that is actually The Doctor opening the TARDIS door, which becomes clear in the next shot. I was worried people would mistake that for an error, but rest assured it isn’t.

Exciting times ahead for DW fans. Power of the Daleks may be getting an officially sanctioned animated adaptation, CLASS’s premiere is but a month away, and then there’s only a few weeks until the Christmas special. Before you know it, we’ll be well on our way to the moment we’ve all been prepared for, Moffat’s departure

But cast your minds back to 2013 when we were all prepared for another sudden departure, as Matt Smith boweed out of the TARDIS and made room for our current holder of the house…or box, or whatever.

Yes, from the vault of edits passed, I bring you my long overdue edit of Time of the Doctor.

I first dabbled with an edit of this not long after it’s 2013 transmission and with this version I made adjustments and improvements to the elements I changed. We don’t get any nudity/holographic clothes here, a lot of that was very easy to smooth over with the aid of the television soundtrack. Also gone is the whole of Clara’s interactions with her family as well as Eleven’s long-winded speech and phantom Amy. Here, The Doctor regenerates at the belltower and comes up the TARDIS steps as Capaldi.

With work on Hell Bent concluded, I’ve since moved forward with revisiting something I edited years ago, only now that I have new ideas for the project.

My earlier edits of the Paul McGann Doctor Who TV Movie proved ultimately too creatively reckless. I had tried to remove and alter too much in order to make it mystifying and a lot more exciting and I wound up with more plot holes than even Moffat would reasonably allow.

So with this approach, the changes are about as minimalist as possible. The biggest addition is this, footage of Anthony Ainley from the PC Video game “Destiny of the Doctors”. Ainley, the fourth actor to play the Master and the third (or 14th) overall “incarnation” of the notorious renegade, never got a proper farewell story (and died before Big Finish could ever give him one like they did Colin Baker’s Doctor) so that needed to be addressed immediately.

Following this, I decided to push the opening credits back by a few minutes, so there was proper tension, and going to the titles just as the camera zooms in on The Doctor’s look of silent shock at the empty slime-covered box was a note perfect moment to send you off into a grand adventure

Other edits included the removal of the notorious snogs between The Doctor and Grace. This proved initially tricky, but I think I worked around it well:

Finally, inspired a bit by a trick utlized by Whoflix, I decided to end it on The Doctor, Grace and Lee heading off to Gallifrey in the TARDIS, and concluded the edit with the Big Finish version of the Eighth Doctor theme (a leftover idea from my more primitive McGann edit)

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Note: This contains spoilers for “Hell Bent”

Somewhere, at the end of all things, it waits to speak

It cannot afford to whisper.

It’s not hard-wired to.

It must have a commanding presence. It must own the room. And all around it should obey.

In its private moments, it had often dreamed of being a Supreme in the legion, where all could obey it. It thought such a role to be a divine concept.

A concept of beauty.

Like all dreams, they fade and reality sets in. The reality of war, and the reality of consequence.

It lay there now, in the cloister corners of the Matrix, in the catacombs of its most hated adversaries, those who had denied its race the stranglehold on creation they felt they had earned through their persistence and patience. A race that had defied its own end twice, and once in a far more novel fashion than the last.

That one time, the end did come. The second instance was a cheat. A parlour trick, designed to fool naive eyes.

And those eyes were now staring back at it, give or take the seconds where their faces could show, and when their screams could be visible.

They never spoke to it, they needn’t have to, their thoughts were everywhere. Their thoughts and sounds and stories informed its hours. Informed it’s purpose. For purpose was what it needed to justify the endurance of the final days granted to all corners of creation.

Everything has purpose, even at the end.

It absorbed the information, the prophecies, the tales of the creature that was the making of the oncoming storm.

The talk of the hybrid.

Two travellers, two companions, who would break the barriers of all reality to undo the deaths of one another. Two stubborn spirits who refused to let the traditional course of events be the most natural and befitting.

Those who deemed endings inappropriate.

It knew what the prophecies meant.

It knew the prophecies were wrong.

It knew what the hybrid was. It had sussed it out.

All it needed was to give out a warning. That is, if the pain could permit it to speak, and if it could lay a gaze upon one face. Or two.

And then it’s chance arose.

There they were.

A man who, in all his lives, had never associated knowledge with wisdom, and his companion, a woman now thrice dead.

One with a pulse, another with none.

One who’s heart beat no more, and one who’s twin hearts were broken.

They stood now, in the catacombs of the Matrix, amongst the ghostly Cloister wraiths and other prisoners of the chamber, seeking a way to defy the impossible.

It knew it’s chance had come.

As the woman thrice dead approached it, it knew it’s voice needed to be heard. The pain was excruciating, the strain was unbearable, but the warning had to be given.

But would she hear it?

“Exterminate Me” it said, the veins around it tightening their grip, “Exterminate Me”

The woman thrice dead reeled back, the man with the broken hearts pushed her aside. In an instant of time, both disappeared from sight.

The Dalek rested, it complimented what had just happened.

Had the moment passed without incident? Had it been over just like that?

Did she understand the warning?

That there was another factor yet to step forward on their journey. Somewhere beyond the cloisters and the matrix and the world of the Time Lords. A third participant. An immortal who had long cut herself off from care and concern.

Someone whose influence could prove a damning one on that long way ’round.

Me.

The Daleks have a concept of beauty, and sometimes, a concept of mercy.

In this instance, at the end of all things, this Dalek chose to embrace that concept of mercy, to spare all of creation the unrest the Hybrid would cause.

The woman thrice dead, and the woman who lived.

Left unchecked, they could unsettle reality, and the ripples would be felt all the way to the end.

And all this Dalek wanted to do was rest alongside everything else.

As its consciousness drifted into a deep slumber, it prayed its mission, its mercy, would be understood.

And if the woman thrice dead was still able to run, so too, should she be able to remember.

The Dalek rested, remembering, or perhaps, hoping, that everything could work itself out, that everything had a purpose that could be eventually understood.